


Resolve (Drought)

by Aermin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-31
Updated: 2006-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:55:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aermin/pseuds/Aermin
Summary: There was a flash in the sky like the brightest camera going off, and then people fell down. Everyone fell. Few people still clung to the belief that those who got back up were the lucky ones.  Because then people started to change.





	Resolve (Drought)

It was like going through laundry. Take the shirt by its shoulders, shake, and with a twist of the wrist fold the arms across the front. And again, with the next one. Pile them up, like a display in the mall. If the shirts were only the same colour, you could pretend they were high fashion. She had to smile at that, just a little. Next, take the sweatpants by the waist, decide which side belongs out, and pull the wayward leg properly. Check the pockets. Fold them in half, the legs and the cuffs meeting just so. Then fold them into thirds, so the bloodstain above the knee won't show.

She stood, but found it difficult to catch her balance with the stack of cloth in her arms. It would be a bit of a climb to get the rest of the way back. Rain was coming, and despite how it transformed the dreary landscape into something lush and alive, she needed to get the clothes to the shelter before they got wet, or they wouldn't do anyone any good. The building was halfway up the sharp incline, practically a cliff, but after climbing it every day, she still couldn't call the place home. It could never be home.

A doll-sized sweater fluttered from the top of the stack, the damp wind gusting it a few metres down the mountain. She swore, jumping after it, tucking it with the rest of the baby clothing between the larger white shirts. Those shirts were good cotton, and would make fantastic bandages, but for now...they could hold baby clothes.

It wasn't like you needed bandages when a baby was born, was it? Still, it was better to be prepared. It was always better to grab them now, before someone else took them. Who knew when she'd see such a supply of cotton again? It was so tempting to just take one of the extra shirts, and use it for herself; a thin scrap of insulation between the prickly wool of her sweater and the skin that was still raw and irritable. She missed cotton. But, of course, wool made dreadful bandages, and without a new supply, they could all be in trouble. But the temptation...

She pulled a pair of polyester pants on top of the pile, concentrating on how ugly they were. Very ugly, really. At least they were good for something.

She really had to get back, though. The baby was due any minute. The baby!

The way the world ended wasn't as sudden and clean-cut as most science-fiction stories would have you believe. About nine out of every ten people died that day, randomly, without bias whatsoever. There was a flash in the sky like the brightest camera going off, and then people fell down. Everyone fell. Few people still clung to the belief that those who got back up were the lucky ones.

For the ones left behind, it was only the beginning. You see, the world didn't end because of illness, or of war, or of some holy deity coming down and sending all the sinners to fire. No; the way the world ended was much more complicated. The way the world ended was a mix of all these bad dreams, stirred up, with just enough glimpses of unattainable hope to make every day unbearable.

There was fire and there was ice, but the ice burned and the fire froze clear to the bone. Many said it was, in fact, God's retribution for an unknown sin, but their voices soon fell silent. In this new world, there was no refuge for the meek. Gangs of survivors formed, attempting to reinitiate some semblance of civilization upon the scorched landscape, but attempts at leadership fell from tyranny to anarchy. Weapons were salvaged from the wreckage, and although electricity and even firearms were now dreams of the past, a sharp blade and a heavy stick were as effective as ever. In the battles for shelter, for scraps of food, for scavenging territory, the war was ruthless. The ones who remained spoke not of salvation and paradise. Within the course of a month, Hell had come to earth.

And then the plague set in.

The disease was inescapable. The incubation was different for everyone who caught it, as were the final symptoms. For some, the cough lingering over the first month worsened, until lungs collapsed and hearts gave out. For some, the cough gave way to other...peculiarities. Blood was common, and pain. Some people seemingly just gave up, passing quietly in their sleep. Some went screaming, with black decay crawling up their limbs, their skin peeling from their very faces. It was a cancer. It was a disease. It affected people's very cells, initiating cycles of growth and decay of which stem-cell researchers only ever dreamed. Limbs grew where none were before. Bones shifted. Senses changed. The disease didn't kill all it touched, but change lurked in its wake. It was chaos.

Yet within this chaos, patterns formed. For some, the disease was quick, and nearly painless. Several clusters of survivors' symptoms were all similar, and they preached divine favour. What else would cause greater strength, finer reflexes, and above all, wings? It was a sign of holy glory, they declared, as they banded together against the diseased condemned. They were the angels among demons, for while the world was damned to suffer the agonies of their transformations, the winged ones could salvage the best food, the most defensible shelter, and forge a community in their similarities.

The winged ones fled the cities as the pain of the illness abated from the crowd below. With energy and techniques unheard of since the construction of Stonehenge, they formed fortresses in the mountains, high above the ruins of urban decay. Below, reigned the chaos of nightmares.

The cry of pain from within the shelter brought back memories of the era of the disease, and her own grief. Compared to the others sharing her shelter, the disease was kind. The pain left her mobile, left her limbs, and left her sanity. The cough disappeared, but the very oxygen of the air burned her skin. Over the weeks, the disease sat in her frame, and ate away at her face. The cartilage of her ears crinkled like fat on a pan, and her nose slowly melted away. Even her hair fell out, from her eyebrows to her toes. In her panic, she raided a gutted pharmacy, taking as many vitamins, keratin-boosters, and skin-growth promoting pills as she could. This mistake resulted in dramatically increasing the hair loss, but proved its original effect in an entirely unusual manner. Her fingernails grew, over her knuckles, covering her fingers. Her skin lost its weak, transparent texture, and began to harden and flake. After half a year, the effect was reminiscent of scales, such as on a fish. Scales like a snake.

If one had to look on the optimistic side, her condition was certainly the only thing allowing her to survive in this desert of a world. Her skin was tough enough now to withstand the searing sun of the day, and she no longer shivered in the cold pouring from the depths of the night sky. As her companions weakened and died, she brought food and water to the survivors, needing drastically decreasing amounts of it for herself. When the disease had run its course, only a few people remained in the house on the hill, but the strengths that got them through their maladies were the ones that could help them survive in this new world. Everyone put on faces of bravado, going out to collect food and essentials for their new ragtag little family...but everyone was cautious. Everyone carried a blade, easily accessible. Everyone huddled together at night, not daring to make a fire, but soaking up each other's presence for comfort in the dark.

A new life was about to join them in the little concrete building. She rushed inside, dodging carefully-laid traps, and pushing past the boy on the stairwell. They all slept downstairs, as they had carved a hidden door in the basement. It was the safest place. It was where the new mother lay, her face tightened in pain. The girl knelt beside her, mopping flecks of sweat and blood from her dark face, adjusting the blankets before she caught a chill. The mother's limbs darted from their confines, however, the thin webbing between them entangling with the wool like the black fins of a fighting fish. The small girl's ears twitched, and she looked up at the figure in the doorway with her eyes full of worry. The mother was so loud...what if the one who had done this to her heard her cries, and came back? What if there were others like him around? What if there were worse?

This world was not the place for a baby. A new presence to the household would prove troublesome, but the child itself would not be unwelcome. Their shelter lay on the fringe between worlds; a cliffside situated between the devastation of the city above, and across the scars of the highway, the newly-tenanted industrial section. Warehouses and office buildings were the new metropolitan district, as residential homes and places remembered with fond emotions were subject to phenomenal fire and floods.

She remembered her own homecoming, a day wandering amid discarded vehicles, picking her way among the bodies of strangers. Almost everyone was dead, but... There was a chance. There was a hope. She had to know.

Not a house stood intact on her block. The street was littered with shingles and plywood. One lone structure stood before her, the tree in the yard blossoming, the paint gleaming in the low light as if it were new. She knew, she knew they had to be alive, they had to be home, everything would be okay! Elated, she ran up the front walk, leaping the stairs, grasping the familiar handle of the door.

Through the glazed windows of the door, the fire raged. Silent, cold, completely contained, the flames licked the walls, caressed the ceiling. The furniture was ash, the artwork destroyed, any occupants voiceless within their prison. The flames skulked at the doorframe, scratching the small windows, awaiting their release. She backed away, her eyes locked on the façade of her home, the friendly familiarity hiding the menace within. She ran.

Shaking her head, she dropped the scavenged clothing in a corner, and took the stained rag from the hands of the girl. She gestured to the frail boy behind her to gather up the water jugs. He may be so thin as to barely leave a shadow, but the muscles hidden in those arms were stronger than wire. He would be all right.

~*~

There was so much blood. He didn't think there was supposed to be that much blood. Like, wasn't it just supposed to be water, at least until the baby was actually born? He wanted to help, he wanted to do something! So, what did they have him do? Get clean water. Fabulous. That means sitting in the rain for a good quarter of an hour, 'cause after last week, there's no way any groundwater near here would be uncontaminated. Well, the new bandages won't sterilize themselves, I guess, but he knew they were just trying to get him out of the way. The only guy, in a cabin of girls, with a baby on the way? In a world formed of leprosy and decay...it was good to know some things always remain the same.

He smiled at this, turning his back to darkness under the trees, and waited patiently for the rain. He never bothered to glance up to the wet bellies of the clouds, themselves.

~*~

It was strange how being on the ground floor left her feeling exposed and vulnerable. There were walls, technically, and most of the ceiling remained, but being long above ground left her uneasy. This was where the bleach was stored, though, and the other chemicals they dared not keep close at hand. You never knew what would happen around chemicals, these days. They would need a few drops of bleach to purify the water, though, so she cautiously poured the liquid into the bottom of an old cup. She paused, unhooking the edge of the camouflaged tarp from the scales at her wrist. As much affection as she already had for the coming child, the mother's cries brought back unpleasant recollections of the previous year. She supposed could bare another moment or two on the ground floor.

The cries changed in timbre as a second, higher voice joined the melody. The cup of chemicals sloshed dangerously as she dove down the stairs. Two sets of eyes stared at the sudden intrusion of light, but the door slammed at her back, and she groped in the shadows for the new cotton. She grabbed the cleanest of the shirts – where was the water? – and gently took the infant from the young girl's arms, clearing its nose. It shrieked and flailed its bright red limbs, face contorted in a newborn's eternal waking grimace. She grinned. A healthy child. A boy, perhaps a bit smaller than babies were supposed to be, but the right colour, the right texture, the right shape! She lifted the child to where the mother could see. The exhausted woman was still bleeding, but the creases at her eyes relaxed as her fears came to pass. The child was normal. He was free of the crippling disease. He was, beyond all expectation, alive. The shock of life began to dissipate, and the baby calmed, burbling, in her arms. She would hold him until the mother was able. If she was able. If the bleeding stopped.

The screaming continued. Heavy footsteps poured down the stairs, too many to be a mere boy with a bowl of water. Oh no. She couldn't move, but the girl and the mother were out of the bed, at the hidden doorway in the wall. They didn't look back; they had survived for long enough to know better. She clung to the small hope in her arms, as dark feathered shaped burst into the room, silhouetted in the doorway. The light refracted from the clouds far above glinted off their pikes, glistening on the edges of their blades.

She fell to her knees; the air felt too close to breathe. Rough hands forced her to the floor, clawing away the bundle she clutched so tight to her breast. They took him. They took him. The life, the warmth, the hope, they took him, and she was alone again, left in this horrible cold hell of a world.

She wouldn't see anyone again. Her family was gone. This shelter, too, was burning. She remained, staring at the shadowed concrete of the basement floor, and the smoke began to sting at her eyes. They couldn't do this...everything that was good and warm and decent in this world was now corrupted and twisted. It was so hard, finding the resolve to keep on living, when every moment broke your heart. She had put so much hope into one little child, seeing it alive and whole amid the devastation. Did she consider him a miracle? His life was a beam in this darkness, a lighthouse beckoning in a wasteland. She had known him for only moments, but had felt a tie to him, stronger than blood.

She climbed to her feet, alone in the dark, and wiped the tears from her lidless eyes.

She had to get him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Vienna Teng's song "Drought", and an obsession with apocalyptical sci-fi media.


End file.
